President's Firing Stirs Up Oregon Campus

Sanskrit Scholar Clashed With Governor Over Budget Issues

By

Joel Millman

November 30, 2011

EUGENE, Ore.—Several hundred students and faculty gathered Tuesday on the University of Oregon campus to protest the sacking Monday night of the university's president, who clashed repeatedly with the state's governor, lawmakers and education officials.

"I stand by The Hat," said sophomore Laura Johnson, using the nickname Richard Lariviere earned for his collection of fedoras. Other speakers at a noon demonstration praised what they characterized as Dr. Lariviere's bold leadership as president and his drive to make the University of Oregon, the state's most selective public college, one of the West Coast's premier institutions.

ENLARGE

Richard Lariviere, then president of the University of Oregon, waves to students Saturday in Eugene, Ore.
Associated Press

"The media portrays him as 'not a team player,' " scoffed music professor Robert Kyr, the president of the university senate at the 24,000-student school. "He's the most transparent president any of us have ever known."

Dr. Lariviere lost the support of Oregon's governor, John Kitzhaber, a Democrat. "Unlike every other university president in the state, he disregarded my specific direction on holding tight and delaying discussion about retention and equity-pay increases until the next biennium," the governor said in a prepared statement.

Dr. Lariviere learned last week his contract to remain head of the state's largest public university wouldn't be renewed when it expired next July, leaving the 61-year-old educator to resign immediately or be fired. Dr. Lariviere told the board he would rather be fired than "watch ourselves glide into mediocrity."

He declined a request for an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

Oregon's 12-member State Board of Higher Education voted unanimously Monday night to remove Dr. Lariviere during the next 30 days.

The ousted university president is entitled to a year's salary as severance—$245,700, according to the state's biggest newspaper, The Oregonian, in Portland. Dr. Lariviere, who is a tenured faculty member, may return to the classroom as a professor of Sanskrit.

Blogs by students and faculty roundly support the outgoing president. "The mood at the UO is grim," said university archivist James Fox. "Faculty and administrators are demoralized and deeply upset."

An emergency meeting of the faculty assembly was scheduled for Wednesday.

Dr. Lariviere's ultimate clash with Oregon's higher-education board had been building over his two-year tenure.

One complaint centered on a decision to raise faculty salaries at the Eugene campus—some $2.8 million for 1,300 professors and administrators according to published reports—during a time of austerity.

Another was Dr. Lariviere's proposal to have the state back $800 million in new revenue bonds for the University of Oregon—apart from six other public university campuses in Oregon—that the Eugene campus then would fund privately to retire. Rival schools such as Oregon State University and Portland State University saw that as an example of the University of Oregon seeking autonomy from the state system.

Academic standards have improved under Dr. Lariviere's administration, many on campus say.

This year's incoming freshman class had a high school Grade Point Average of 3.59, the highest in the campus's 135-year history.

"The U of O has never been more popular, and the quality of student has never been higher," said Phil Weiler, a university spokesman.

Some of that popularity—and a record number of freshmen applicants—is no doubt due to the national prominence of the Oregon Ducks football program, ranked No. 9 nationally. Last season Oregon competed against Auburn University for the national collegiate football championship.

The university has been a big beneficiary of Phil Knight, an alumnus who is co-founder of Oregon's best known corporation, Nike Inc. Mr. Knight blasted the decision to remove Dr. Lariviere, calling it "yet another example of Oregon's assisted suicide law."

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